Richelieu

In the article I quoted somewhere upthread. But it was in English, and the French newspaper rather mention a (more believable) absence of seat choice, not assignment:

They could be assigned at the last minute (check-in?) without possibility of changing it.

brunos

I am happy to hear that you feel that it is feasible at AF.
My worry is not that it is unfeasible but that it will be hard to implement within AF culture.
And I am not convinced that it is not a major redesign of AF booking engine and therefore will require significant planning, redesign and testing before it gets operational. For example, to achieve what AC is doing on its domestic booking webpage will be quite difficult.

irishguy28

So instead of unassigned seating, you meant assigned seating?

That's more or less what they have already anyway, with their automatic check-in.

Richelieu

Yes. Either way, it's strange : it's not a drawback worth mentionning in the newspapers if it's nearly how it is done right now, and if it's unassigned seating (as in low cost) then it will be very confusing to implement.

orbitmic

If you mean that AF will (effectively) poorly implement it, with plenty of bugs, last minute seat changes and problems of the type "I bought eco minus without luggage and to not pay anything let me take my two cabin size suitcases with me and let they try to stop me and waste plenty of time if they dare" then I'm 100% with you. AF is remarkably gifted when it comes to transform apparently good ideas into computer Halloween night scenarii and the French remain some of the most offensively undisciplined and devoid of basic civic sense nations I can think of (granted, I may have spent too much time in the UK which makes the contrast look particularly unpleasant). But as NickB mentions, they barely need to poach someone else's model and find half decent computer people to put together a similar model. They will not do it well but I don't think it will be any worse than it currently is when the 'booking engine is down' every other time I try to book something on the af website, when auto-check in always manages to create mutant seat maps that seem to come straight out of some horror movie and when flight miles from partner airlines do not post at least 10% of the time (and I might be generous). In short, my guess is that it will be 'business as usual'

Richelieu

orbitmic

You know we REALLY like them when we manage to smile about it!

JOUY31

The next step is another meeting of the Comité Central d'Entreprise on June 21st, where additional details of the industrial plan "Transform 2015" should be unveiled. According to various press reports quoting a representative from the CFE-CGC trade union, this includes reducing the headcount at Air France by up to 5,000 staff, representing close to 10% of the airline staff (excluding subsidiaries).

Source: http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-eco/201...-syndicats.php

San Gottardo

Another very sensible and spot-on post by orbitmic.

PS: off topic: I understand the cultural shock in terms of civil sense with the UK. What do you think it's like for me coming from Switzerland where not only there is civil sense but on top of it the infrastructure works? Thank God I have some French genes as well, otherwise it'd be unbearable

Goldorak

From La Tribune (sorry, in French) :
http://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-...e-cityjet.html
You probably remember the intentions announced by AF to merge YS, DB and A5, as part as their restructuring plan, without any mention of which place WX could have in the new regional pole of AF. This lead to a recent strike among WX staff. Well, AF is now looking for investors, either to take a stake in WX or to buy it completely. Despite its lower operational costs, WX is still loosing money. In the new scheme, WX could continue to operate some AF flights but could also operate some flights on its own.

orbitmic

Thanks! And yes I think I can imagine! Order, mutual respect, and efficiency are things one gets dangerously used to in very little time!

stimpy

Is this a French bashing thread? What does this have to do with the OP? And by the way I think that the UK is far, far, far behind the French culture when it comes to civil order and especially mutual respect. Efficiency is debatable as I think both countries suffer there. Anyhow these are just the worthless opinions of internauts.

brunos

NickB

All of this looks to me like decontextualised over-generalisations. Civic sense and mutual respect are undestood to mean different things in different locales. Anybody who is familiar with the UK and France can easily see things which would be regarded as rude disrespect of others in one country but perfectly normal in the other and vice-versa.

Perhaps better off steering clear of these generalisations.

orbitmic

Apologies, I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone, not even my (French) self. For the (irrelevant) record, France is my country and I love it to bits. I just think that behaviours are different in different places and completely agree with NickB it mostly means different messages (worded or unworded) assume different meanings or connotations across cultures. This being said, if you look up at the start of the discussion this refers to, we started from a point that seemed to me to be relevant to the specific thread, ie that rightly or wrongly I expected the introduction of charging for such things as luggage and seat selection would inevitably lead to some onboard tension. In both cases, I'm perfectly happy to do that on a non-national basis as the argument still holds (notwithstanding the fact that I do think that for cultural reasons, there are countries where "it is forbidden to do this" would hold more weight than in others). In both cases I base my argument on existing threads within the AF forum. (1) Re-seat selection, I'm referring to existing threads on paid seating with people complaining about paying extra for a seat and seeing people effectively moving to the one across the aisle which is free. I was simply suggesting this is likely to increasingly happen if some people 'didn't choose' their seats (2) Re-luggage, I'm refering to numerous threads on this forum about people finding it hard to find space for their luggage in the racks especially on domestic and bases-province flights which do not have priority boarding. There again, I simply meant I would expect the problem to increase further as some people won't have an inclusive piece of hold luggage and that therefore AF will need to police this. I hope that my worthless opinion is at least a bit more understandable with those explainations Anyway, once again, my sincere apologies if anyone felt offended, those on this forum who know me personally know that it is not my style to enter any form of remotely xenophobic comment and I can assure you no such meaning was intended.